March '08 Izzy's Top 7

Welcome to the 1st issue of Izzy's Top 7

This Top 7 can give you a simple insight of some of our favourite things

If you are wondering why 7 and not 10?

Well... our respond will be why 10 and not 7?

for this month, our Izzy's Top 7 is...

Izzy's Top 7 Reading Material

7. Seal Pup Grows Up (Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld)

6. Samurai Jack (Tracey West)

5. Can You Keep a Secret (Sophie Kinsella)

4. Mountain Bike Action (Magazine)

3. Books on The Adventure of Tin Tin (Brown Little)

2. Books on Dilbert (Scott Adams)

1. Books on Geronimo Stilton (Geronimo Stilton)

... Geronimo Stilton is a favourite among the whole family members!

Mika Hakkinen in Town

2-time F1 World Champion Mika Hakkinen is in Singapore today & demonstrated his skills at the Padang (St. Andrew's Road) from 4pm to 6pm. He came out 4 (or maybe 5) times and completed 2-4 laps each time. It was exciting to be so close to the burning tyres!

The event was presented by Johnnie Walker with the theme "Never Drink & Drive"

HK Disneyland 2

More photos... + fireworks at the end of the day.

HK Disneyland 1

Pictures taken at HK Disneyland...

Hong Kong - trip to Disneyland

2nd day evening, time to change hotel nearer to Disneyland, so senang sikit.... no need to make long trips to the place for the next 2 days. Got the package deal of 1 day tix + 1 day free from the hotel. The place was not so full... so can take many rides without having to wait in the long queue.

Hong Kong - Kowloon & City

We made a trip to Hong Kong mid March with an obvious destination target for the kids. However, spent day 1 & 2 in Kowloon and HK city before heading to Lantau Island. Went up The Peak on day 1 to view the city at night before walking along Temple Street to do some late night street shopping. Travelling in HK is quite convenient & easy... we used the MTR throughout our stay there. More photos later...

Cuti-cuti NZ5 (FB)

from Te Anau, we head back to Quensstown for another round of snow at Remarkables before driving to Wanaka to spend a night there. Visited the Puzzling World before heading back to Christchurch (430km or 6 hrs journey)

Cuti-cuti NZ4 (FB)

Before leaving Queenstown, we stopped at Shotover Jet to pump-up our adrenalin level. We got a healthy dose of thrill therapy going down the spectacular Shotover River Canyons. The boys just went crazy and wanting even more!

Next stop... Milford Sound & we spent 2 nights at the small Te Anau Town as our base. At Te Anau & Milford, we spent time to recover & to slow down our heart rate by visiting a glow worm cave & went for a scenic boating at Milford Sound.

Cuti-cuti NZ3 (FB)

Next stop.... Queenstown.... for the snow (I think we saw less than 50 cars for the whole 300km from Dunedin). Went up the Remarkables Ski Mountain for some snow action.... ski + tubing + snow fights

Cuti-cuti NZ2 (FB)

After 4 days using Christchurch as our base, we then drove south to Dunedin. It is 360km from Christchurch and the journey took us slightly more than 5 hours. Just managed to arrive on time to visit a Cadbury factory before calling it a day.

Our main target at Dunedin was the Natures Wonders located in the Otago Peninsular (1 hour drive). The weather was quite lousy (wet & very cold) & we turned out to be the only customer that braved through the weather to visit this place at that time. The service was very-very friendly and as the guide told us..... the lousy weather is no fun for humans but a paradise for the wild.... among the wild animals that we managed to see are cormorant birds, fur seals, a blue penguin & a yellow-eyed penguin. Let me that you something.... seeing a penguin in the wild is more fun than seeing many in the zoo! The search & the hiding (& keeping the boys quiet) to locate a penguin was thrilling!

Cuti-cuti NZ1 (FB)

Last year, after more than 12 years working, finally we went for a real cuti-cuti... took 3 weeks leave and 2 of those 3 weeks were spent in New Zealand. We chose NZ cause the boys wanted to see snow... badly. Our target was only the South Island... self driving.... 2 weeks were still not enough.

We started in Christchurch and drove north to Kaikoura (pronounced Kai-Ko-Da) the next day. It was a 3 hour journey by road. Kaikoura means "eat shell fish" and this place is popular for whale watching. After having a quick and simple lunch, we spent 3 hours in a boat and managed to locate 8 sperm whales and 2 humpback whales.

We also took the famous TranzAlpine Scenic train from Christchurch to Greymouth crossing the Southern Alps. Return trip was about 9+ hours (including a short stopover for lunch at Greymouth). It is a nice way to relax and enjoy the view. The train also had an open viewing area for you to enjoy the fresh air. Cold... very cold wind was also available at no extra cost!